New Delhi: Herbal cigarettes, marketed as natural, tobacco-free, and therapeutic alternatives for guilt-free smoking, can be more dangerous than traditional tobacco cigarettes, a new study has found.
Researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN) and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), US, found that emissions from herbal cigarettes can be comparable to — or even more harmful than — tobacco smoke.
The findings were published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials ahead of World No Tobacco Day, observed annually on 31 May.
For the study, researchers compared smoke emissions from two popular tobacco cigarette brands and four herbal cigarette brands sold in India. The herbal variants contained ingredients such as basil, clove, cinnamon, mint, green tea, water lily, and chamomile. Some of the products also used tendu leaves — commonly used in bidis as wrappers.
“One of the biggest misconceptions is that if a product is nicotine-free, it cannot harm you,” Sameer Patel, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering and Chemical Engineering, IITGN, and co-coordinator of the Dr Kiran C Patel Centre for Sustainable Development, told ThePrint. “People think herbs like mint or basil are healthy because they can be eaten. But burning and inhaling them is a completely different process.”
The research paper presents a comprehensive comparison of the physical, chemical, and oxidative properties of mainstream (firsthand) smoke from commercially available herbal and tobacco cigarettes in the Indian market. It also says that herbal cigarettes release high levels of fine particles and toxic compounds linked to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.
“Our findings challenge the widely held belief that tobacco-free means risk-free. Emissions from herbal cigarettes are comparable to or exceed those from tobacco cigarettes on nearly every metric we measured. Leaf-wrapped herbal variants turned out to be the most hazardous of all the samples tested,” added Patel.
The Journal of Hazardous Materials noted that cigarette smoking remains a persistent global epidemic, with an estimated 1.18 billion individuals (32.6 per cent of men and 6.5 per cent of women) engaged in regular smoking, contributing to over seven million deaths annually.
Reality of herbal cigarettes
For the study, the researchers burned cigarettes inside a controlled chamber designed to mimic human smoking patterns and monitor it. The smoke released by the cigarettes was then analysed for particle size, chemical composition, and oxidative potential — a measure linked to the production of harmful molecules that can damage lungs and blood vessels.
The study also found that herbal cigarette smoke released around 20 per cent more sub-500 nanometre particles than tobacco cigarette smoke.
The particles released from the herbal and these “natural cigarettes” are noted as more dangerous because they can travel deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream.
Researchers also found that Tendu leaf-wrapped cigarettes recorded nearly 49 per cent higher oxidative potential compared to paper-wrapped cigarettes.
“The leaf-wrapped herbal variants turned out to be the most hazardous among all the samples we tested,” said Patel.
In one case, a basil-filled herbal cigarette marketed as “chemical-free with 100% natural filler for a healthy lifestyle” showed the highest concentration of lead among all samples tested.
“That finding is important because many consumers associate nicotine-free products with reduced harm,” said Vishal Verma, Associate Professor of Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and research collaborator on the study.
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Gap in the industry
According to the researchers, the study also exposed a regulatory gap in the herbal cigarettes industry.
While tobacco products in India are regulated under the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA), there is not much clarity regarding the regulation and advertising of products marketed as tobacco-free.
According to lead author Dr Alok Kumar Thakur, several herbal cigarette brands claimed that their products could help reduce cough, improve sleep or ease anxiety despite limited scientific evidence supporting such claims.
“Combustion, fine particles, soot, trace metals, and the wrapper around them all matter more than what is written on the box,” said Dr PS Ganesh Subramanian, co-author of the study.
The researchers clarified that the study does not directly examine long-term disease outcomes in smokers. Instead, it focuses on the harmful properties of smoke emissions and their possible biological impact.
“This is the right time to start regulating herbal cigarettes because the category is growing rapidly,” Patel said. “Herbal cigarettes are currently in a grey area when it comes to regulation. These products are being marketed with health and wellness claims, but they are not subject to the same restrictions as tobacco cigarettes.”
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)